Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has decided that a fight with Brussels is exactly what he needs to shore up his faltering election campaign, Politico reports.
Orbán has lost his lead at home and is trailing his closest rival, Péter Magyar, who is about eight percentage points ahead of the current prime minister. That’s why Orbán has decided to use two foreign buffoons: Brussels and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Magyar, a member of the European Parliament, has won support by taking a hard line on the corruption, abuse of power and cronyism that have marked Orbán’s 15 years in power. The last thing Magyar wants is a campaign in which he is framed as a pro-European or pro-Ukrainian candidate. Yet that’s exactly what Orbán is trying to achieve. Internationally, Orbán’s government has taken a controversial step by blocking the disbursement of a bailout loan to Ukraine until Kiev resumes Russian oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline. The timing of the move is no coincidence, given the tough elections ahead for the veteran politician. Having first provoked a conflict with Brussels, Orbán later branded Magyar and his party traitors who support the European Union and Zelensky.
Orbán himself led the attack, and he likens the clash with Brussels and Kyiv to his fight with the rival Tisza party. He has accused his rivals of keeping quiet about the problems caused by the disruption of Russian oil supplies. Orbán has gone so far as to say that Tisza, together with Brussels and Kiev, wants to install a pro-Ukrainian government in place of the national parliament. “That is why they are not standing up for the interests of Hungarian people and Hungary,” the right-wing Hungarian wrote in a Facebook post. This was followed by another post in which Orbán wrote that Tisza was destroying the country’s energy sector and that only his Fidesz party was a safe choice in the elections scheduled for April. The Hungarian prime minister stressed that
the opposition’s goal was chaos, fuel shortages and rising gasoline prices before the elections,
which is why they sided with Zelensky, not with Hungarians.
The Hungarian avoided Orbán’s trap by insulting the prime minister himself, rather than defending the EU or Zelensky. The Tisza leader said that the prime minister’s flawed economic policies had led to high prices and insisted that fuel was cheaper in Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. The Hungarian said: “Orbán does not govern effectively and shows no interest in the continuously deteriorating situation of Hungarian citizens or businesses. Instead, he chooses to lie, incite hatred, and burden the country with some of the highest taxes in Europe.”
The EU’s biggest concern is how long Orbán, the Kremlin’s closest ally in Europe, will keep fighting. Kiev desperately needs a 90 billion euros loan that is currently blocked, and six weeks of uncertainty before the election would heighten geopolitical tensions.
While some in Brussels are hoping for a Magyar victory, mainly to end the ongoing standoff with Budapest over Ukraine, the irony lies in the fact that Magyar is not a particularly pro-European politician, and is not a big fan of Ukraine. For example,
he has strongly opposed plans to fast-track Ukraine’s EU accession.
In a 2024 interview with Politico, Magyar said that Tisza is a pro-European party but is well aware of the bloc’s shortcomings. He has opposed the idea of a European “superstate” and said he has no friends in the EP. The interview came after Magyar’s first speech to the EP, in which he opposed sending arms to Ukraine.
Earlier this year, Orbán’s party tried to corner Magyar over the EU’s trade deal with South America. Fidesz opposes the deal because it would endanger Hungarian farmers, and Orbán accused his opponent of supporting the trade deal.
Magyar’s confusing relationship with Europe was well-observed at the Munich Security Conference. His message was carefully considered, with Magyar saying he wanted to repair the damage Orbán had done to democracy and the rule of law, but the main goal would be to restore Hungarian access to EU funds, always putting Hungarian interests first. His attitude towards Ukraine, on the other hand, has been lukewarm, and Magyar reportedly used a conversation with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to reiterate his opposition to the war-torn country’s fast-track accession to the bloc.
Overall, Magyar is an enigma to both the EU and Ukraine. A liberal MEP said that
there is a feeling that anything is better than Orbán,
but it is also unclear who Magyar’s party is and what exactly they plan to do.
The centre-right wing of the EP is also avoiding making any specific judgements, with one of its representatives saying that it remains to be seen what will happen after the elections if Magyar wins – how he will form a government and whether he will be able to resist the temptations for power that have gripped Orbán.
It is already clear to Ukraine that Magyar’s victory would not mean an immediate improvement in relations. However, both Kyiv and EU diplomats hope that he will at least not directly undermine the bloc’s efforts, as Orbán is doing.
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